‘A lousy deal’

Mr Abbott described the newly revealed Australian/Malaysian agreement on refugees as ‘a lousy deal’. He said we give them 800 and they send back 4000.

What really angers me with this statement is Mr Abbott is deliberately misleading the public. It’s actually a great deal. If money is what gets you through the day that is.

See the cost to house and detain and process an asylum seeker is high. Roughly a person in correctional detention costs around $120,000 a year. Of course asylum detention is not correctional detention. So lets say somewhere between $60,000 and $80,000.

Now on average detainees usually are incarcerated for 12 – 24 months averaging at 18. So for 800 people for one year and a half at say $70,000 a person per year is $84 million for the 18 months.

Genuine refugees don’t require detention and they don’t require processing. They have been processed already. Therefore they enter the population like any immigrant does. Now lets have a look at that cost wise. You see benefits are about $440 a fortnight or (for 18 months remember or 39 fortnights) $17200 per person.

This assumes that all 4000 are single. When in a family then the benefits are adjusted. But lets assume there are no families, no one under 18 etc and all separate people.

4000 x $17200 (18months) is $68.8 million. A saving of 16-18 million for the 18 months.

Further the arrivals from Malaysia can enter the work force as soon as they arrive almost. The detains that are not yet processed can not. That means more if they can start looking for work straight away, then they can contribute to Australia straight away. Thats money in the bank.

So no Mr Abbott. It’s not ‘a lousy deal’. We help people in asylum to find a new home, we get people who are ready to join our population, the economy gets workers and (the part you care about) we save money too.

Ash, you might appreciate this eloquent contribution to the debate from NormanK at The Political Sword:
As part of Mr Abbott’s appearance on The Bolt Report he made these statements :
“If we send 800 to Malaysia, we get 4000 back and Malaysia becomes the backdoor route to Australia – the open backdoor to Australia and that’s why this really is a lousy deal for our country”
“Sending to Malaysia means that we get five back for every one we send.
“Nauru doesn’t have any to send back, that’s the point. If we send them to Nauru, they go there, we don’t get any automatically back.”
news.ninemsn.com.au/…/malaysia-refugee-plan-lousy-abbott
Now, are we talking about diseased cattle here? Or empty coke crates? Or rabid dogs frothing at the mouth?
I would draw your attention to the fact that in the above quotes Mr Abbott does not once refer to asylum seekers or refugees by name.
“If we send 800 (impotent camels?) to Malaysia, we get 4000 (polystyrene boxes?) back and Malaysia becomes the backdoor route to Australia – the open backdoor (up to a quota of 1000 per year) to Australia and that’s why this really is a lousy deal for our country (because after all it is a commercial enterprise, right? I mean really! What’s in it for us?).”
“Sending to Malaysia” (sending what Mr Abbott?) “means that we get five back” (five what, sorry? dead smelly fish?) “for every one (used diaper?) we send” (worse than boomerangs aren’t they?).
“Nauru doesn’t have any (what? what? what?) to send back, that’s the point. If we send them (poisoned dead rats?) to Nauru, they (Greens voters?) go there, we don’t get any (deeply traumatised fellow human beings seeking shelter from those who seek to do them great harm) automatically back.”
If the ‘Stop the Boats’ slogan is meant to reflect the Coalition’s desire to reduce the arrival of refugees on our shores on humanitarian grounds (and throw in the furphy of border security) then these statements give the lie to that. What Tony Abbott is advocating is stopping asylum seekers and refugees coming to this country. That’s it. If he thought he could get away with it, his slogan would be ‘Sink the Boats’.
I know that I should show more consideration for my blood pressure because that’s not what Abbott believes at all. Who knows what he believes on this topic. Mr Abbott is the King of the Trolls and therefore has no need of fundamental convictions when he unloads this type of rubbish, as long as the dogs can hear it and the person interviewing him is not going to contradict him (much less take affront at such cavalier statements about traumatised and needy fellow Homo sapiens).
You may reasonably assume that I am completely disgusted by these statements. I have remarked before that I don’t like being treated as a customer being sold a commodity when it comes to politics, well I’m even less impressed when the so-called alternate Prime Minister chooses to speak of the underprivileged as though they themselves were an inconvenient commodity to be shipped off to Nauru, never to return.
This is a new low from a man who I didn’t think could go much lower.